Chef

Of course, don't expect here a masterpiece or any attempt to make an original plot or anything like that : this is a mainstream production, and all we should expect from it, is just to be funny, well-done, and without bad taste ingredients. And so it is. A simple comedy, gentle, with a good rhythm, and nice characters. In fact, not only the main characters are good here, but everybody is, and the supporting actors here have their place, and contribute to our pleasure. Jean Reno and Michaël Youn compose a nice duet. There's not much that I can add. Except that even if everything was easily expect regarding the plot, what is never obvious to expect is that we'd have such a very good time.

Nothing to be ashamed here, you can do worse than spend an evening with this comedy, but there's little here that puts it above other feel-good comedies with the exception of Jean Reno - who is, sadly, the only one here with real comedy timing. The main actor, Youn, is obviously a bit overstrained with carrying the movie.

Apart from the boring lead, the gags are OK and mostly good-natured, what's maybe missing is a bit more "bite" or bitterness in this altogether rather sweet mix. Some punches are thrown against stylish kitchen trends and star restaurants (which is OK with me, but those are easy targets).

Recommended for people who like cooking themselves (as we do).

Le Chef (2012)

Boy are there a lot of these kinds of cooking movies out there, and most of them fall into a familiar pattern. Luckily it's a pattern that works—in that feel good, root for the underdog way.

This is a very lightweight comedy, and the hero is a chef with unusual talents, but also with a lovely fiancée who is getting impatient with his other love—cooking. So he tries to get a real job, and of course that doesn't work and he ends up cooking on the sly. Which leads to a feeling he's "cheating" on his girl, at least mentally, and so on and so on.

The lovely parts of the movie are actually the cooking parts, where you see his talent come alive. There are the usual critics, the mean boss, the underdog friends who are there in a pinch, and so forth. Yes, it's a formula. And it's totally feel good fun.

And there's nothing more to it than that! Bon appetite. And don't confuse this title with "Chef" which is an American twist on the same basic formula.

Did I already say that I love cooking and films about cooking? I probably did. For food lovers talking, reading, watching TV shows and - why not - seeing movies about food and the people behind food just amplifies the pleasure of enjoying good food and enriches the experience. We have been blessed with a few good movies on this topic, some older (who can forget Louis de Funes in L'Aille et la cuisse?) some recently like the American Chef with an almost identical title as the French comedy Le Chef.

We may of course expect a lot from a French film about 'haute cuisine' - the subject should be part of the national expertise after all. Director and script co-writer Daniel Cohen has taken the easy path with this lighthearted comedy about a famous chef (Jean Reno) who is obsessed with keeping his three Michelin stars intact and an unemployed aspirant (Michael Youn) trying to find his way in the world of high-end cooking. Everybody has a good time and especially Reno who abandons for a short while his tough guy mask and lets us know that he owns a carefully suppressed comic talent.

There is some serious background behind the light comedy which should not be omitted. Great chefs nowadays need to fight increased competition from street food and from the modern trends like 'molecular food' (which incidentally I hate as much as the folks who wrote the script of this film). Fighting kitsch or pretentious avant-garde artistic challenge that is not encountered only by artists in cooking but by many other fields. So are the crisis of creativity, the loss of inspiration, the need to change and do something else in certain turning points of lives and careers. None of these subjects are absent but none is explored to deeply either in 'Le Chef'. The result in culinary terms is a 'souffle' - light and pleasant when eaten but not leaving persistent memories after the consumption. I mentioned the American movie 'Chef' which also dealt with a famous cook in some crisis in his life and career turning to street food. Well, the food in the American 'Chef' may not have been as classy as the food in the French 'Le Chef' but the film that resulted was better.

OK, so the critics didn't much like this frothy French comedy directed by Daniel Cohen, but the French can serve up a blundering wunderkind better than anyone else. Aspiring chef Jacky (Michaël Youn) is called in to save the day for the three-star wonder Alexandre Lagarde (Jean Reno), who may be on the verge of losing a coveted rating star and his restaurant in the bargain. There's never a moment's doubt how any of the plot lines will resolve, but it's the whole meal that makes this movie fun. It was released summer 2014 in the United States around the same time as the American comedy Chef, which created some box office confusion. Sweet and light as a perfect dessert soufflé, this French offering is a good antidote to, say, the Nightly News. Curmudgeonly Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it a mere 48% rating, but audiences liked it more (59%). Said Moira MacDonald in the Seattle Times: Le Chef may not be a masterpiece, but it's nonetheless a treat. Some days, that's just right.